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Hong Kong Trip, Day 1 – McDonalds at The Peak

by Tony Chung on July 28, 2008

A glimpse of Hong Kong from The Peak at night

We just arrived back from [tag]Hong Kong/tag] late last night, departed at midnight on Sunday and arrived around 2AM this morning. I must say that this trip was really fun and we certainly made the most of four days i.e. we did in about 80 hours what a lot of people would probably need a week to do. Since 1) we did a lot of things and 2) I want to give you all a play-by-play, I’m going to split the recap into four posts, daily recaps if you will. So here we go:

Wei and I took off from Taiwan around 4PM that day. We spent most of the plane ride either sleeping or vigorously competing each other in electronic trivia games courtesy of China Airlines. 😉 We arrived in Hong Kong at around 6PM that night and took a bus ride to our hostel. The bus ride from the airport to our hostel was about USD$4+ and took about an hour. We stayed at New Garden Hostel for about USD$15-20 per night (yes, dirt cheap), it’s located at Tsim Sha Tsui right next to Victoria Harbor. It’s the ideal location for traveling to Hong Kong Island and back. The hostel is on the 13th floor of a typical somewhat broken-down building and our room was as small as a room could be for two people. Basically two beds, a small bathroom with a bath and toilet (no shampoo or soap), and a mini, inoperable TV. But despite the small size of the room, it was very clean and equipped with air conditioning. Again, I think the key is its location because we only spend minimal time resting in the hostel at night anyway.

We dropped our stuff off at the hostel and made our way to The Peak on Hong Kong Island. We took the ferry from Tsim Sha Tsui to Hong Kong Island (also dirt cheap, about USD$0.20), in my opinion, it is probably one of the best ways to spend USD$0.20 in this world. 😉 The view of the lit skyscrapers at night is quite amazing. From Hong Kong Island, we then took a bus and tram up to The Peak. The tram was somewhat expensive and very crammed. I think the line-up system for the tram is quite inefficient, because it basically is a free-for-all, push-and-shove session to get on the tram. Some ruthless tourists don’t mind pushing others out of their way in order to secure a seat on the tram. Maybe it was due to my high expectations, but the tram ride was pretty average. The view from tram towards the top was quite nice, but that’s about it.

The Peak, however, was awesome. It was my first second time there (but first nighttime visit). Luckily the skies were totally clear that night and we could see all the skyscrapers very well. It’s a must-visit spot if you are visiting Hong Kong, I definitely recommend a night visit. Our first day culminated in a delightfully scrumptious meal at The Peak of Hong Kong at… McDonald’s. We had Big N Tasty burgers with a side order of chicken mcnuggets. Yum. lol We ended up eating McDonald’s simply because it was late and most restaurants had closed already. Plus we were starving like mad. After The Peak, we headed back to the hostel and called it a night. We took a double-decker bus with no roof on the top level back to the pier. That ride was actually more fun than the tram for only about 1/4 of the price of the tram. We were exhausted and hit the sack at around 2AM.

Amen Benny, the ferry ride is something I always look forward to doing when visiting HK. The weather was awesome, bright and sunny. We were lucky because I heard just last month, it rained 28 days in a row (a record for HK). Although when we visited Macau on the last day, it rained when we were departing.

I'll have to remember that hostel next time I go to HK. What casinos and what games did you play in Macau? Last November when I went, the MGM wasn't opened yet. But the design of it was really unique. Did you get to see the inside?

I saw the inside of MGM the last time I visited in February, it's very nice but nothing too different from the other casinos. We didn't have too much time in Macau this time, so we spent all our time at The Venetian. Blackjack (and a bit of Casino War / Roulette) all the way!